Thursday, August 16, 2012

The last time a baseball player defected in Edmonton, Ron Hayter got blasted by Fidel Castro.

The chairman of the Edmonton International Baseball Federation, Hayter was held responsible by the Cuban leader after three players from his national team went missing in 2008 during the World Junior AAA Championships.

El Presidente was so angry he called Hayter from Havana, tracking him down at Telus Field.

“He was hostile,” Hayter said Tuesday as news spread about a possible defection here at the World Cup of Women’s Baseball. “He spoke enough English so that you knew exactly what he meant.

“He said, ‘Ron, you are the scum of the Earth.”’

...Hayter, a former Edmonton city councillor, said he has not officially been notified a defection occurred, but said it would not shock him. Enamoured with playing in the big leagues, a handful of Cuban men have defected in Edmonton over the years.

“The fact that this is a woman is what makes it different,” Hayter said. “That would be a first.”

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When I was a kid, a team of Soviet cyclists defected while at some competition in the midwest. IIRC, they snuck out of there hotel saturday night, wandered the streets of Chicago all evening, and showed up at my Russian Orthodox church on Sunday morning looking for help. This was in the very late 80's, so defection wasn't as big a deal.

Like I said, I was a kid at the time, so I didn't know about this until we were on the car ride home. I was amazed that they managed to sneak out and wander around in their cycling uniforms without being spotted. I was even more amazed that they were there but I didn't see anyone at church wearing a cycling uniform. I also thought Michael Jordan walked around in his Bulls uniform all the time.